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Happy mid sized Meraki customer
April 30, 2021

Happy mid sized Meraki customer

kevin mcgillicuddy | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • MS120-8
  • MS120-8LP
  • MS120-24P
  • MS120-48LP
  • MS125-48FP
  • MS210-48LP
  • MS225-48LP
  • MS250-48LP
  • MS425-32

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Meraki MS

All of our Ethernet switches are running a switch in the [Cisco] Meraki MS line. We have, between all locations, 40 switches in all. The problem it solved for us, was enable an easy to use interface for our service desk to respond to port changes and network troubleshooting. It also helped us gain valuable insight into how the network was performing overall as well as help with us with some automation needs across multiple switch changes at once.
  • Easy to use
  • Automation and mass changes
  • Insight and reports of traffic type and bandwidth usage
  • Alerting
  • Great customer support
  • People who are coming from enterprise switches or command line options may feel limited
  • If internet is having issue, managing the switches can become more burdensome
  • Switches do not have as many advanced features as enterprise switches
  • Delay in reporting and debugging
  • Easing service desk training requirements
  • Reducing network troubleshooting time
  • Ability to manage changes within our change management process
Deploying a new switch is very easy and takes us almost no time at all. The user interface is designed for managing multiple switchports at once, so someone needed to update a VLAN across multiple switches, [Cisco Meraki MS] makes this very easy. The service desk is also able to login and view cable testing issue, duplex mismatches and how busy an uplink trunk is and really empower them to own the ticket and feel like they are able to work network issues without immediate escalation
Azure Active Directory provides SAML SSO which is a huge requirement of ours and makes delegation of roles and permissions easier
We also use Meraki Wireless access points, which is great because the graphs and network topology that there cloud is able to create helps us understand the network. The access points also tell the switch what port it is plugged into
Very scalable and easy add more switches, we just buy a license and put into the portal and then plug the switch into our management network, it checks into the cloud and is able to get a pre-built configuration. The configuration is also very easy to update and change as needed, when changes that could impact the internet access to the switch, a friendly warning comes up and has saved us a few times from making a bad config.
[Cisco Meraki MS] provided us with a single shop for everything, deployment, automation, and monitoring. There was no need for extra monitoring and mass management software like there would be with Catalyst. Also have Meraki being bought by Cisco provides it with great stable corporate backing and direction. HPE Aruba at the time did not have as wide a product selection. [Cisco Meraki MS] has a wide array of models for multiple port sizes, power over ethernet output settings and stacking options. The virtual stacking was also something that was of interest to us
[Cisco Meraki MS is] best suited for companies with multiple sites that want visibility and switch management in one platform. The Meraki series is most likely a better fit for small to mid-size companies that are comfortable with a cloud first approach. IT departments that have a string desire to use advanced features and "get under the hood" may be unhappy with Meraki. Your only way to mange the switches it really through there cloud, the switches have a very debug centered local webpage. Companies also looking for 40/100 GBPs would have a wider model range in another vendor, Meraki also dos not support Fibre Channel. If departments also want to control updates on a certain version, Meraki may not be ideal, they do not let you get too far behind in firmware. They have in the last 6 years really kept adding so many new features and have a good value stream and have been increasing the product portfolio a lot.